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Sketch design for a new Town Hall, or General Assembly Room and Market House
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Reference number
SM drawer 69/1/10
Purpose
Sketch design for a new Town Hall, or General Assembly Room and Market House
Aspect
Front elevation and plan
Scale
10 feet to ¾ inch
Inscribed
By Thornhill, in pen and brown ink, left of plan, Town Hall, or / Genll: Assembly, Market House. / & c; and within plan, 30 ft clear; 60 ft.; and to right of elevation, 17 ft high; 23; and to right of plan, Blandford / Forum.; and on verso, over small pencil-drawn rectangle of plan, 40 ground / 80
Signed and dated
- 1733
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink, with grey-brown wash
Hand
James Thornhill
Watermark
'VRYHEYT' in crowned wreath, with lion, spear and seven darts; see Churchill, 1935, no. 83
Notes
As Colvin has observed, Thornhill sat in Parliament from 1722 to 1734 as Member for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, and in 1732 was one of the Commissioners for the rebuilding of Blandford after its destruction by fire on 4 June 1731. This explains how he came to make this unexecuted design, which 'shows a degreee of Palladian influence that is unexpected in one who as an artist was so consistently baroque in style'.The plan provides for a long table on a dais at the upper end of the ground-floor hall, which may be connected with the use of the space as a market hall. The spiral staircase on the left would have given access to an upper hall, presumably for use as a council chamber and assembly room.
Literature
Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, 2008, pp. 1039-40
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk